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Month: May 2017

Today the storm has swelled. I am overwhelmed with the very thought of taking care of my family, my husband in particular. With tears in my eyes, I’ve watched him struggle all day. The dementia washes over him deeply today and he doesn’t understand what’s going on. It’s like he’s adrift at sea, tossed by the thoughts that have no rhyme or reason. Where will he land? Will tomorrow see the storm calmed? I can see him drowning and there’s no life preserver in sight. I’m losing him and there’s nothing I can do.

He asked when middle son had to leave for prom. Middle son is homeschooled. There is no prom. He is so lost and I don’t know what I can do to help him. He asks when eldest is getting home as he takes the 2 hour old dinner from the microwave and starts to toss it in the trash because he thinks it’s left over from last night. Eldest is in her room, talking to middle and hasn’t left the house all day. It’s 8 P.M. He thinks it’s morning. He doesn’t realise it’s the youngest child’s dinner, keeping warm till he awakens from his slumber.

I try to get him to go back to the bed he’s lain in all day. He argues and fusses that he’s not tired. He stumbles from the kitchen as I make him scrambled eggs and hash browns with a bit of bacon chopped up in it. I give him his plate and he spills half on the floor. He tries to clean it up but the dogs beat him to it. They have grown accustomed to cleaning up after him I think.

I wonder, briefly, if he’s had a stroke as I watch him eat. He chokes, momentarily, on the food and my breath catches. Will I have to put him in the hospital again with aspiration pneumonia or should I just let him go? I have to walk away, feigning a bathroom break, so I can allow the tears to stream freely down my cheeks for a few minutes. Waves of grief wash over me as I’m tossed about, emotionally, like driftwood in a hurricane.

I’m adrift on the sea of emotion. Alone in my torment. I have noone to talk to. The one person I had to talk to is adrift in a different part of the storm. Lost to me. Drowning.